On a May night at Redlands Community Park, Lee McDaniel watched from the bleachers as Ian Crain took his place in left field for the Redlands Youth Baseball Dodgers.

Ian, 11, had quit baseball after his father and baseball coach, Riverside police Officer Michael Crain, was shot to death by fugitive homicide suspect Christopher Dorner in February 2013. A half-hour before that Feb. 7 slaying, McDaniel had stared down Dorner at a Corona-area gas station and alerted police, who then engaged the fired Los Angeles police officer in a gunbattle before Dorner fled.

Now Ian was back on the diamond, and McDaniel, despite struggling in the final stage of bladder cancer, drove from his Corona home to watch.

“It’s awesome,” McDaniel said that night. “He’s able to just think about being a kid.”

McDaniel, 50, died Tuesday at peace with his role in the manhunt. The Corona resident and longtime Corona National Little League board member owned a repossession business in Norco. His first chemotherapy treatment came the same day that he encountered Dorner, and his health took a serious downturn in the past two weeks.

McDaniel initially blamed himself – either by what he did or could have done at the gas station – fearing that he might have sent Dorner on a disastrous rendezvous with Michael Crain at a Riverside intersection that also critically injured Crain’s partner, Andrew Tachias. Dorner at the time was being sought in the killings of Irvine residents Monica Quan and Keith Lawrence.

Jennifer Crain fondly recalled McDaniel’s appearance at the park. She introduced McDaniel to Ian after the game, and Ian razzed McDaniel about wearing a Cleveland Indians jersey to a Dodgers game. McDaniel’s garage is decorated with memorabilia from the Cleveland sports teams.

Even though McDaniel was suffering, he said in an interview on the one-year anniversary of the manhunt that he was worried more about Ian and his sister, Kaitlyn, who lost their father, than about himself.

“I think just seeing Ian play and be a kid and be kind of carefree … he realized (Ian) would be OK,” Jennifer Crain said.

Michael Crain’s widow, Regina Crain, said Tuesday that she was saddened by McDaniel’s death.

“He was a true hero who had the courage to report seeing a dangerous serial killer,” Regina Crain said. “My hope is that more people will follow his example and be courageous when the time comes.”

A three-judge panel gave McDaniel 5 percent of the city of Los Angeles’ $1 million reward for information leading to Dorner’s capture. McDaniel never applied for the reward – a son did – and said he wished the money had gone to the Crain children and the family of San Bernardino County sheriff’s Detective Jeremiah MacKay, who also was killed by Dorner.

Jennifer Crain and McDaniel talked for more than four hours when they met this spring at a Riverside coffeehouse. She told McDaniel that she didn’t blame him for her ex-husband’s death.

“He was crying quite a bit – we both were – so we went from being awkward to the two of us holding hands,” Jennifer Crain said. “He wished he could have traded places with Mike.”

Lee McDaniel, the tow truck driver who first spotted Christopher Dorner in Corona, reflects at his home on Jan. 21. FILE PHOTO
Lee McDaniel spent much of his last days keeping an eye on the children of slain Riverside police Officer Michael Crain. KURT MILLER, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

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